Keeneland September: Tapit records fourth seven-figure yearling

A Tapit filly became the fourth yearling by her sire to sell for seven figures this week, going to Shadwell for $1 million late in the fourth session of the Keeneland September yearling sale.

The filly, out of the winning Tabasco Cat mare Evrobi, is a full sister to Tell a Kelly, who won the Grade 1 Debutante Stakes and placed in two other Grade 1 events as a juvenile. It is the family of French Group 1 winner Northjet.

The filly was the third seven-figure yearling consigned by Peter O’Callaghan’s Woods Edge Farm, which a $2.5 million War Front colt earlier on Thursday, the overall top price of the auction through four sessions.

“She’s very good-looking, she looked like a racehorse in her own right, and a full sister to Tell a Kelly, to boot,” O’Callaghan said of the Tapit filly. “It seems to me there are no limitations to those kind of horses. [With stallions like] Tapit, War Front, Medaglia d’Oro … if they look the part, it seems there are no limitations. We put her in there at not even a third of [the final price] as the reserve.”

The Keeneland September sale has now matched the 18 seven-figure yearlings sold in 2008. That year, the Keeneland sale was underway when a stock market crisis on Wall Street roiled the global economy, leading to an extended recession that severely impacted the bloodstock market. This year’s sale runs through Sept. 21, with the Book 2 section beginning on Saturday.